This week’s Conversation That Matters features Diana MacKay the Executive Director of Carleton University’s Global Academy on Canada’s valuable education resource. MacKay says we have a lot to offer to students and educators around the world. In recent years, there have been about245,000 international students studying in Canada at any given point in time and the goal is to increase the number to 450,000 by 2020. While it’s important to continue to attract international students, MacKay asks, “what happens if we expand our offering, if we were to package up the expertise of our universities and colleges and start selling it to audiences around the world in the business sector for one?”

According to MacKay the benefits of expanding the education menu are far reaching. Pathways to a Canadian education include“Online, satellite campuses and programs that have them live here to name a few. They’ll contribute to our economy by being part of the Canadian system, they’ll get a professional program or a chance to practice their skills, apply their skills using their deep knowledge and conducting their business in English. There's untold demand around the world for people to come and gain their fluency in English through an experience here.” Canada has an education system that is extremely marketable through a wide range of venues and MacKay says we can do so much more than we’re currently offering.

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features Greg Power of Weber Shandwick, a public relations expert who says the days of just the facts are over. Power says, “audiences need to connect to the person sharing the information and simply stating the facts isn’t good enough in a post truth world.” Power says, “stories connect us, they resonate and storytelling is an important part of our evolutionary DNA. It's how we've always organized the world and how we need to organize the world to participate in it.”

Power believes great storytelling includes, “people, it involves conflict, it has human drama and it has a solution.” As Power points out, this was the magic of Steve Jobs, “he understood how to use drama. During the launch of the iPhone he created conflict by stating smartphones are not so smart and then positions the keyboard on the smartphones, as the enemy because of the screen space it robs from you the user He goes on to state screen space is your freedom. He turned it into a drama and let me tell you why. Let me tell you who the villain is and now let me show you is the hero and the hero was the iPhone.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features Brad McCannell of the Rick Hansen Foundation says, “we are all on a long slippery slope towards mobility challenges” He says the time to pay attention to accessibility in your home, your office and your city is now and he points out, “we’re not doing such a great job.”

McCannell says an effective accessibility strategy is consistency. “ Imagine having to plan your trip not knowing from one intersection to the next if you get from one side to the other. Will there be a ramp? Will it be an appropriate ramp?’ McCannell says we’ve had a hogpog policy that includes a little of this and a little of that and it comes up short of an effective accessibility plan.

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features Giselle Portenier who is producing a documentary on the “Bravest Girls in the World”, girls who run through the jungle, across the desert evading predators of all sorts along the way to escape a ritual that mutilates them and could kill them. Portenier says, “It's a complete violation of their human rights.”

Portenier is working to tell the story of girls who are running from genital mutilation, a custom that is imposed upon them by their cultures and their families, “it’s not just a women's issue becau

se the girls get married to men and when they do get married to men, they're much more likely to die in childbirth, they're much more likely not to enjoy sex. And it's also the men that are demanding it be done in many of the cultures, a lot of FGM is performed for financial reasons because if a man wants a cut girl, and he has to pay a bride price for the girl, he's prepared to pay a higher bride price for girls that have been cut.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features Murray Leith the Head of Research at Odlum Brown on investing during what appears to be a Trump Bump. Leith says, “everybody's calling it the Trump rally but I actually would argue that there's fundamental, economic reasons for the strong performance in the stock market.”

Despite the markets around the world being up by more than 10% over the past two months Leith points out the reasons stem from the strength of the US economy, “there's this feeling that because the market didn't do a whole bunch until after the election, that it's all about Trump and that maybe investors are too euphoric. But really, a 10% return in a year when the economy went from bad to quite a bit better, that's just pretty reasonable.” Leith says enjoy it for now but don’t make your investment choices on swings in the market, he says, “wise investing means having a long term strategy”.

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features James Hoggan who penned, “I’m Right and You’re an Idiot” an insightful look at the toxic level of public discourse. Hoggan has long been speaking out about anthropogenic climate change and found himself in the midst of some heated arguments. He says he wrote the book to understand why others weren’t listening to him.

Along the way he learned that shifting one’s perspective or beliefs is an extremely difficult prospect. He points out we’re programmed to dig our heels in especially when we encounter a forceful voice on the other side of the equation.

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features Eugenia Oviedto-Joekes who lead a team of researchers that ran the NAOMI and SALOME clinical trials on the effectiveness of providing chronic heroin addicts with medical heroin or hydromorphone. The trails generated positive results and lead to the creation of Crosstown Clinic.

Crosstown is funded and operated by Providence Health Care because it’s working. Oviedto-Jones points out that injectable heroin is one tiny part of what the clinic offers, “the most important part is the building of relationships and re-establishing a way of caring for people which is something we have not done for more than 30 years.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features Adam Hart who penned, “The Power of Food” based on his experiences with what he eats. Food that made him sick, food that prevented him from staying focused, food that was killing him, food that ultimately saved him and changed his life.

His plan is antithetical to commonly held beliefs about diet, it includes breathing, positive self-talk and adding rather than taking away. Hart says, “number one, more than any other food for me has been hemp, hemp seeds. It's the one food that, 15 years ago I discovered talked to me in the way that I wanted a result, mostly stabilized blood sugar. I wanted to feel sustained energy.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features Michael Chong a man who wants to lead the Conservative Party and ultimately Canada. He says he is the embodiment of a Canadian, multi-cultural, bilingual, socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Chong says, “Canadians believe in building political parties based on fiscally conservative agendas which are also inclusive.”

On immigration, he says he’s not afraid to invite the people of the world come and join us in the building of our nation, “we've created something very special, a place where millions of people have created a different kind of society where it doesn't matter where you come from, what your background, your race, religion, or creed is, but rather what you aspire to be and a place where we all share a common Canadian citizenship centered around our charter rights and freedoms, our laws, our democracy. So we've built something here pretty special that we need to protect, but also enhance.”

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.

This week’s Conversation That Matters features Michael Izen who wrote “Finger up the Bum” a humorous look at his battle with prostate cancer. He’s only 50 but 51 isn’t looking promising. Why and how did this happen? He’s not suppose to be dying of prostate cancer because, as he was told repeatedly, “guys in their early 40’s don’t get prostate cancer. Nothing to worry about because statistically that’s the way it works.”

Over the past five years he’s had surgery, he’s had one treatment after another. Some work for awhile, others for shorter periods of time but now he’s out of options. So he took a look at what he wanted to do and one thing was to chronicle his relationship with cancer and to focus on the the people he loves.

Conversations That Matter is a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University. Join veteran Broadcaster Stuart McNish each week for these important and engaging Conversations shaping our future.